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Thursday, July 9, 2015

Welcome to my stop on the Review
Tour, presented by Goddess Fish Promotions, for The Secret Baby
Room by D.D. Johnston. Please leave a comment or question for D.D. to
let him know you stopped by. You can
enter his tour wide giveaway, for a $30 Amazon or B&N GC, by filling out
the Rafflecopter form below. You can
also follow all of the stops on D.D.’s tour by clicking on the banner
above. The more stops you visit, the
better your odds of winning.

Claire
Wilson knows what she saw: on the eighth floor of a derelict tower block, a
woman was bottle-feeding a baby. But why would anyone take a baby into a
boarded-up tower block? In an area of Manchester plagued by unexplained
tragedies, the only allies Claire can find are a pagan witch, a wild-child
party girl, and a husband with too many secrets.

On
Sunday morning at 9:15 a.m., Claire was escorted to Interview Room 3. She was
relieved to be out of the cell but self-conscious about her stale breath and
unwashed body. Her jeans smelled of damp, and dried blood covered her right
hand where she had grazed her knuckles kayaking.

And
then it occurred to her, as she was waiting alone in the interview room, how
ridiculous these thoughts were. What did it matter? So much of her life she had
spent caring about the wrong things: what did it matter whether she had stale
breath? What difference did it really make if her bra was visible through her
shirt? Why did she care about her BMI or her… underarm fat. Underarm fat! Who
even decided such a thing should be added to the catalogue of female worries?
It was all absurd. She remembered that as she was being driven to the police
station, her hands cuffed behind her back, among her many terrors was the
thought that she might be strip-searched. As much as she feared the violence of
the act, she had also worried because her legs were unshaved and it had been
ages since she’d attended to her bikini line. What a moment at which to worry
about depilation! ‘Who cares?’ she said aloud. ‘Who cares?

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

D.D. Johnston’s first novel,
Peace, Love, & Petrol Bombs, was a Sunday Herald Book of the Year in 2011
and is published in Spanish as Paz, amor y cócteles molotov. His experimental
second novel, The Deconstruction of Professor Thrub, was a 2013 book of the year
in The Morning Star, where it was described as “determinedly extraordinary”. He
lives in Cheltenham, UK, and works at the University of Gloucestershire, where
he is a senior lecturer in Creative Writing and a University Teaching Fellow.
In his spare time he runs the OnlineWritingTips.com website.

An interesting mix of literary
fiction and psychological thriller/mystery, The Secret Baby Room by D.D. Johnston begins slowly but slowly
gains speed towards a happy conclusion. Filled
with colorful characters, quirky British dialogue and an interesting mystery. While I wouldn’t say this is a thriller by
American standards, there’s not a lot of running around with guns, bombs or
terrorists, the psychological elements of the book do provide just enough
tension to keep you turning the pages.

Mr. Johnston
does a good job developing Claire’s character right from the start; a married woman
who left her job and friends to move to a different part of the UK (Manchester)
due to her husband’s job transfer, Claire finds herself in the unenviable
situation of being alone most of the day.
Realizing her situation Claire sets out to make friends in her new
neighborhood and occupy her time with hobbies or social obligations. Observing a blond lady holding a baby in the
tower behind her home, Claire soon finds herself on the defensive when no one
believes what she’s seen. After all, the
tower is supposed to be torn down in a few weeks and has only been occupied by
transients without babies. I really liked Claire and easily connected with her strengths
and weaknesses.

Mr. Johnston
also does a good job with the secondary characters, especially Dan, Claire’s
husband, who doesn’t know if his wife is seeing things or dealing with the
grief of a recent miscarriage they suffered. I also enjoyed getting to know the women who
became her friends; Morgana, the neighborhood Wiccan, and Lianne, the alcoholic
party girl whose father is in charge of developing the rest of the
neighborhood. Both women add quite a bit
of color and distraction in Claire’s life and a touch of mystery to the
story.

The mystery part of the story
is well handled and reminded me a bit of the movie Gaslight, a 1944 American Film Noir mystery thriller, based on
British playwright Patrick Hamilton’s Gas
Light. Using the same subtle style
development, Mr. Johnston makes you
question whether Claire really did see a woman and baby on the tower or if she’s
crazy like the police soon come to believe.
As I stated earlier in my review, the only issue with the story’s
mystery/thriller aspect is the pacing, which is quite slow at the start and
then gradually speeds up to a dramatic finish at the end. While the resolution of the mystery is
definitely satisfactory, I would have liked an epilogue giving us a hint of
what happens in regards to Claire and Dan’s future.

Will Claire discover the
mystery behind the woman and baby she saw in the tower balcony? Or will she
discover it’s all a part of her post miscarriage depression? You’ll have to
read The Secret
Baby Room to find out. I
enjoyed it and look forward to reading more of this author’s work.

Release Date August 15, 2017

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